


An Enchanted Lullaby

by Photosynths (orphan_account)



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Internal Monologue, hell yeah u already know what to expect from moi, just. Read it u won't regret it, theres a lot more to it than that but it's Deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Photosynths
Summary: A silent night with Chapeau five years after the curse.





	An Enchanted Lullaby

Chapeau would indulge in heaving a sigh if he could. 

He stood tall--a bit too tall for his liking--at the grand entrance to the castle. 

It was a quiet night, and Chapeau was a quiet man. It was times like these; when the eternal blizzard outside slipped into gentle snowfall and all the torches and candelabras had extinguished themselves, that he felt he could truly 'breathe.' He was not a selfish man--wanted for nothing but others' satisfaction, however fleeting--but these quiet nights were a great blessing to him.

Especially now.

Chapeau has always been a man of few words and many thoughts. However, his thoughts tangle with his time and actions and he grows inattentive; slipping in and out of his trademark know-all tell-none observance. It's hard to think and move sometimes; hard to gather everything up in one place.

Were Chapeau a talkative lad, he'd muse aloud how ironic it was for a hatstand to be bad at collecting things. Alas, he is not, and this philosophical nugget shall go unheard like the rest of his inventory of thoughts until someone asks or the rare occasion Chapeau finds it fitting to tell.

The fluffy white snow gathers up against the windowsill, glistening in the moonlight. It begs for someone to pick it up and use it, shape it into something...like a man. Chapeau looks away from between the drapes. He wishes the same, and the snow wishes for some _one._ He feels it a bit more accurate to be referred to as an 'it' now. A some _thing._ No sense in denying it besides whatever emotional boon it gives to whoever calls him a man anymore. Chapeau ignores the sudden pang of bitter regret and sorrow that chips at his wooden frame. He always does. 

But enough of that.

Chapeau begins to twirl his arms absentmindedly. Six lacquered and gold-trim stumps click and spin. "What an _embarrassment!_ Six arms! A great horror indeed!" Chapeau would declare with gusto, were he the type. Instead, our Chapeau is content to stop focusing on his many half-arms. After all, he only moved them out of old habit. Ever since the curse hit those five years ago, Monsieur Cogsworth requested he move "even the most _minute_ amount every once in awhile, for goodness' sake," in the old clock's words. As to why was not clarified, but it didn't need to be.

Some were already fading. "Ashes to ashes," Chapeau would say, voice dripping with sorrow, if he could bring himself to be that dramatic. But he cannot. 

He looks back outside at that gorgeous winter wonderland. Middle of spring, actually, as perhaps only Chapeau would know. He forces his three spindly legs up stone steps pointing towards an empty East turret every morning to watch the sunrise. He can't feel the sun's warmth or have the stir in his heart like he used to when he watched it with his sisters in the village, but he can see it. If he can sense anything, that's decidedly a good thing. In fact, Chapeau can almost see where the curse cuts off, the land of happy, ignorant folk. Folk with smiles and heartbeats and precisely the right amount of limbs. 

_Plenty of coats and hats, too,_ says Chapeau to himself, (as many things he says are) _you should be expecting more of those in your future than anything else,_ he chides. Interesting fact: negative thoughts are a lot more daunting when thoughts are the only things you've got. Chapeau looks back at the stumps where he wishes hands were. 

There is the quietest click of wood on brass as Chapeau opens the drawer of the empty table in the foyer. He may not have proper limbs, but he's got the height, hands, and for now, the flexibility to use drawers. 

Within the drawer, cradled between shreds of tapestries destroyed by the Master, lay a violin. It isn't as intricately designed as anything, or anyone, in the castle, but it is Chapeau's and therefore a part of the castle nonetheless. Carefully, oh so carefully, Chapeau removes its makeshift wrappings. 

He recounts the night he attempted to reconquer the violin's melodies as a hatrack. Six clumsy arms reaching unsurely at tense strings. It was difficult, but he succeeded in a spluttering refrain. He played only when he needed to, only when it felt right. It had to be of his own creation, and he'd only play the same tune once. Chapeau chose his songs like he chose his words: few, far between, and aptly applied. You'd have to be there to believe he'd done anything at all.

Now felt right. This was going to be a song for him. Chapeau was going to indulge himself, something the footman was told never to do, (with no argument) because after all--if not now, when? He was already stiffer than he was half a decade ago, and something told him it wasn't old age. God knows how much longer he would have to be able to coax a song from the instrument. But for now, he would play, both for him and the objects around him.

This was going to be a song for the soft fluffy snow and the dust-covered drapes. A melody for the open-drawered empty table without a clock and candelabrum to adorn it. A harmony for those unlistening two, while he's at it. A slice of symphony for a harpsichord and the voice it lost. A lullaby for the stacked porcelain in their cupboards.   
An aria for a young boy.

The violin swung to where a shoulder could be, and a worn bow in a knobby grip set itself gliding across the strings. A haunting refrain crept quietly into the scaffolding, billowing out into the gentle snowfall and inside up the carpeted staircases. Somber, but cold. Melancholic, but with a twinge of passion. 

A ballroom symphony was down to its last musician. Chapeau was lost in his thoughts again, pouring whatever scraps of humanity and heart he had left in him into his violin, forgetting what drove him to stand in the empty foyer, arms open for collection in the dead of night. He played for what seemed like an eternity, his music touching parts of the walls and ceiling human hands hadn't graced in years. But what Chapeau didn't know, what his many thoughts didn't contain, was that the castle was listening. 

The castle may not be able to sleep, but that does not mean it is dead. The candelabra and clock, the harpsichord and wardrobe, the teaset, the young boy. Chapeau's music felt parts of the castle left untouched by human hands for years, and this included those listed above. And so he played long into the night, unseen but not unheard by his literal captive audience.

**Author's Note:**

> Step 1: find hat stand  
> Step 2: have depression and a few hours alone at nighttime  
> Step 3: insert the depression into the coatrack, hatstand, hatcoatstandrackcloakholder, whatever.  
> Step 4: profit


End file.
